


Queer House

by wolfiefics



Series: Wolfiefics Stucky Halloween Dabbles [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Ghosts, Halloween, Haunting, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 21:31:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2483156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfiefics/pseuds/wolfiefics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky and Steve on a dare in a haunted house. Things aren't what they seem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Queer House

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed. I'm looking to fill the position. The finale to my haphazard drabble series is going to be a Hocus Pocus AU! I could use some help with it! (dangles chocolate bar)

“They say Old Man Richter was killed in there.” Bucky Barnes’ voice was pitched low and dramatic and Steve Rogers was hard pressed to suppress a shiver of excited dread. “Mitch told me that his older sister said that Old Man Richter was strangled and no one ever found the killer.”

Steve shivered again and pushed his floppy straw colored bangs out of his eyes. “Come on, Buck,” he laughed nervously. “It’s just a story. Old Man Richter died before your family moved to Brooklyn and Mitch’s family lived in Flushing before he came to our neighborhood. How would they know?” 

Bucky’s expression turned stubborn and mischievous, something that would normally make Steve extremely nervous. “You sayin’ you don’t believe that Old Man Richter was killed by the ghost of his wife?” 

Steve snorted. “Please,” he said scoffingly, “I don’t believe in ghosts and neither should you, Bucky. It’s just fairy tales.” 

Bucky blinked owlishly at him, apparently taken by surprise by Steve’s comment. “An Irish boy who don’t believe in ghosts and fairies and stuff?” Bucky asked in disbelief. 

Steve frowned. “Yes an Irish boy who doesn’t believe in leprechauns, banshees and things that go bump in the night, Bucky.” 

Bucky’s expression went from surprised to smug. His blue-grey eyes glinted devilishly and Steve realized too late he’d walked right into whatever trap Bucky laid. 

“Then you won’t mind helping me win a dare then will you, oh brave knight?” teased Bucky. 

Steve sighed, his thin chest heavy with resignation. “Let me guess, Mitch dared you to spend the night in that old abandoned house and you said yes.” It wasn’t even a question; Bucky was way too predictable. 

Bucky’s smile widened and he leaned in close, bumping their shoulders together where they sat on the Barnes’ porch stoop. Bucky leaned in a bit closer than strictly necessary and Steve could feel his heartbeat speed up as Bucky whispered roughly in his ear, “It will be the perfect opportunity to explore, if you catch my drift, Stevie.” 

“Bucky,” Steve half-whined in exasperation but he capitulated as he knew Bucky knew he would. “All right but you owe me.” 

Bucky’s grin rivaled any cat who got a canary. “Oh, you won’t regret it, Stevie,” Bucky promised, wetting his lips teasingly, his smile growing wicked when Steve swallowed hard at the movement. “I promise.” 

It was hard, Steve reflected an hour later as he crammed an apple, some cheese and bread into an old pillow case, being interested in men in Brooklyn. Oh there were places you could go but it had to be on the sly. He’d never been interested much in girls and left the playing field to Bucky. 

He’d been shocked one night two months ago when Bucky, drunker than usual, tapped on Steve’s window, motioning for the smaller man to go out onto the rickety fire escape. To Steve’s shock, Bucky wasn’t interested in talking, he was interested in kissing. 

More specifically, kissing Steve. 

And Steve was more than interested in kissing back. 

They had been ‘messing around’, as Bucky called it, ever since. Steve’s heart lodged in his throat as he realized that Bucky wanted to do more than just stolen kisses and furtive gropes in the darkness of the movie theaters and bedrooms. 

Darkness was creeping over the distant skyscrapers of New York and the city was in that in-between plane where people were home from work but not yet ready to go out for the evening if they were so inclined. It was Steve’s favorite time of the day in Brooklyn, when twilight made the city glow gold and bronze. 

Bucky was waiting impatiently for him when he stepped out of his tenement apartment, the sunset casting an auburn glaze over Bucky’s normally dark hair. The other man’s tanned skin, from days working at the docks or the warehouses, was burnished bronze, exotic and inviting. Steve swallowed hard and looked away toward the street where Mitch Gilroy and some of his cronies were waiting. 

“What are they doing?” he asked with a scowl. 

Bucky glanced at them and then back at Steve. “Gonna give us escort.” 

“Why?” 

“To make sure we get there, I guess,” Bucky shrugged. 

“They gonna babysit us the whole night to make sure we stay?” Steve asked snidely as they approached the other men. 

“Nah, Rogers,” drawled Mitch, his tone showing a hint of his mother’s Irish. She was in her twenties when she came from Ireland, Steve knew. “We’ll get the two of you all nice and snuggled in for the night and then bring you some breakfast in the morning!” 

The other two men, Jerry Ryan and Bernie Campisi, were followers. Steve never heard the other two men speak anything that resembled either a complete sentence or a parrot of something Mitch said before. 

“Yeah you stay the night and we’ll bring you breakfast!” guffawed Ryan. 

Case in point, Steve thought disgustedly. Ryan was dumber than Campisi but compared to them Mitch was a genius. 

“You guys ready?” Bucky asked casually as he slung his bag over his shoulder. The three nodded eagerly and the group began to head up the hill. 

The abandoned house know to the locals as “Old Man Richter’s” had been for sale since the old German died about six years ago. Richter’s relatives had been unable to sell the house due the economic depression and the house’s condition. It wasn’t in bad shape, but it needed a lot of work. 

It wasn’t small either. The neighborhood rumor mill stated the Richter made money in the white slave trade, but it was mostly malicious. The German came into the neighborhood with money, near as most remembered, but as the neighborhood declined, Richter refused to move. He had been a miser, not community minded in the least, a regular Ebenezer Scrooge without the poignant soul salvation before his death. 

Bucky stopped right before the wooden staircase leading to the two story house. He stared up at it and Steve followed his gaze. The door looked like it was barely hanging on its hinges and the glass pane was cracked in several places. 

“This place must have been fantastic back when it was new,” Bucky breathed in awe. 

“Rich old bastard,” sneered Mitch. “Its an eyesore now.” He gave Steve a sideways leer. “A haunted eyesore.” 

Steve rolled his eyes. “Come on, Buck,” he sighed. This was ridiculous. He hefted his bag onto his other shoulder and marched stiff-backed up the stairs. 

“Well, see you two in the morning!” singsonged Mitch with his two buddies echoing chortled good nights. 

Steve glanced over his shoulder to see Bucky’s apprehensive expression as he followed up the steps. “Hey, the stairs are solid. The Richters spent a lot of money on this house,” Steve said reassuringly, “so we probably won’t fall through the floor or anything.” 

“Uh huh,” Bucky muttered, not looking reassured. 

Steve suddenly felt superior to his friend, something that didn’t happen often. Steve spent a lot of his time sick and his body was weak from various illnesses. While he rarely thought of himself as inferior, he had a solid mind after all, Bucky was the strong and healthy one. To see his normally cheerful and laissez faire friend spooked by a heretofore unknown superstitious nature was kind of empowering for Steve. 

They got on the porch and Steve reached out to try the door knob but Bucky’s hand grasped his wrist urgently. “Why’s it off its hinges?” he hissed in alarm. 

“Bucky,” Steve groaned, pulling at his wrist. “People broke in is all.” 

“Mmm,” Bucky hummed, seeming unconvinced. 

The door’s hinges may have been loose on the door but it still took them a bit to get in. By the time they got inside and Steve flicked on the flashlight that Bucky borrowed from his father the darkness of night descended and sounds of the city coming to its nightlife. 

He shone the beam of light slowly around what turned out to be a long foyer. The carpet tacked to the wooden floor was a dulled burgundy and the flocked wallpaper showed faded squares where paintings or photographs once hung. He swung the beam up to the ceiling and gasped. 

“Wow!” he breathed. 

“Lookit that!” Bucky exhaled at the view. 

Woodwork of different woods looked like a lattice on the ceiling, broken into three different squares. It was like looking up into a lattice covered skylight. 

Steve slowly swept the beam of light around the rest of the foyer, revealing three doorways, one on either side of the foyer and the other directly in front of them. Steve stepped forward and when he got to the doorway on the right, he turned the flashlight’s light into it. 

“A sitting room,” Bucky commented behind him. 

Steve figured he was probably right. There was some furniture, which was surprising, but it wasn’t anything even thieves wanted. The drapes hanging from the windows looked moth eaten in the sparse light. The remaining furniture consisted of a side table lying on its side due to missing a leg and a couple of what looked like uncomfortable horse hide chairs with the stuffing sticking out. One of the arms of one was leaning like it was coming off. 

The fireplace was marble, dusty and dull, a grey square over it that it took Steve a moment to realize was a cloudy mirror. 

“Okay,” he said bemusedly, “what’s the other room look like?” 

He marched to the left side room and tried the closed door. It wouldn’t budge. “Hey, Bucky!” he called, looking over his shoulder and seeing Bucky still in the other room. “This room is locked!” 

Bucky stepped back into the foyer, his expression distinctly ill at ease. “Why would that room be locked?” he asked. 

Steve shrugged and felt a hint of the devil on his shoulder. “Wanna look around the house and see if we can find a key?” 

Bucky was shaking his head emphatically but Steve pretended to not see it. Unwilling to be left in the dark and also let Steve explore on his own, Bucky reluctantly followed as Steve headed toward the doorway that beckoned to the rest of the house. 

Room by room they explored, a couple of small chambers that Steve figured was of some use to servants or something, a dining room with torn and water damaged wallpaper and scuffed wood plank flooring and finally the kitchen. The kitchen had a back door that opened into an overgrown, rather creepy back garden and, most importantly, a hook by the door with a set of keys. Grinning triumphantly, Steve snatched them off its brass hook and jangled them at Bucky, who grinned back. 

As they explored Bucky had gotten a bit of his courage back, too distracted by the lavish, tumbled down house to concentrate on his irrational fear. Bucky took the keys from Steve’s hand and led the way back to the front hall. There he stopped dead and Steve slammed into him with an ‘unf!’ 

“What is it, Bucky?” Steve asked. 

“Stevie.” Bucky’s voice was shaking. “Wasn’t this the door we need to open?” 

“Yes, Buck,” he answered. “Just pick a key and see if it works.” 

“It’s open.” 

“What?” Steve flashed the light at the door and saw it was ajar. “Hunh. That’s odd. So go in.” 

Bucky shook head emphatically. “Steve, you tried to open that door and it was locked and now it’s not? I’m not going in there!” 

Steve huffed and stepped around Bucky, arm outstretched to shove open the door the rest of the way. 

“And neither are you!” Bucky yelped, grabbing Steve’s arm and pulling him back. 

“Bucky!” Steve growled as Bucky sandwiched him between the brunet’s larger body and the wall. 

Bucky snatched the flashlight from Steve’s grip and swung it erratically around the hall. Steve could feel Bucky’s shuddering breath and sensed his friend’s fear. Something had seriously spooked his friend. 

“What is it?” he asked quietly. 

“You didn’t hear that?” Bucky whispered back. 

“Hear what, Buck?” 

“When I said I wasn’t going in there I heard ‘good’. You didn’t hear anything?” 

Steve placed his palms flat against Bucky’s back and rubbed soothingly. “I didn’t hear nothing, Bucky, it’s just your imagination. You’re just worked up is all.” 

“No, no, Stevie, I swear I heard something.” 

Steve reached around and took the flashlight back. “You’re working yourself to a tizzy,” Steve told him. “Maybe I just thought the door was locked and jiggled it loose instead and it’s been open all this time.” 

Steve gave Bucky a bit of a shove and slipped from where the taller man had him pinned to the wall. He stepped into the room, ignoring the feeling that Bucky was staring after him in total fear. 

“Whoa! Look at this stuff!” Steve exclaimed. He felt Bucky step in behind him and make a wordless exclamation at the room’s contents. 

Sheets covered some of the furniture in the room but most of it was piled everywhere in a haphazard manner as if it were being stored in the room. Paintings in gilt frames glittered as the beam of light brushed over them. Gleaming wood of settees and tables, looking freshly polished, were shoved together in a cramped fashion. 

Steve stepped in further into the room and the flashlight beam landed on an oil lamp with oil still inside its well. “Hey, Bucky, you gotta light?” 

“What?” Bucky must have seen what Steve meant as the next moment he stepped into the light toward the oil lamp and pulled out a book of matches he used on the cigarettes he occasionally purchased when his parents didn’t know. 

As the oil lamp began to shove away the shadows in the room, Steve switched off the flashlight. A few minutes later Bucky found another oil lamp and lit it too, giving the room an inviting golden glow. Gleefully the two of them poked through the treasure. 

“Is this what Howard Carter felt like when he found King Tut’s tomb?” Steve asked, peering under a sheet at a stack of unframed paintings. 

“I wonder why the family left this stuff?” Bucky pointed at a porcelain clock sitting on the mantelpiece. “I mean, surely this stuff is worth some money?” 

“Well, the house is structurally sound,” Steve mused, as he pushed his fists onto a settee to determine if he wanted to sit on it. It was fairly squishy and there wasn’t much dust to speak of. “Maybe the family didn’t have room at their own homes for this stuff, they didn’t want it in their house and just left here?” 

He sat down and caught Bucky’s eye, give him a shy come-hither smile. “You wanted privacy, Buck?” 

Bucky’s eyes darkened and he paced over to Steve, leaning over and sealing their mouths together for a kiss. The taller man pulled back and kneeled down, pressing Steve’s knees open so he could crouch between them. 

Steve leaned forward, head tilted and they kissed again, mouths open and tongues tangling. “Bucky,” Steve murmured, thrusting his right hand into Bucky’s hair and curled his left around Bucky’s neck to tug him closer. 

Bucky made a wordless groan, sucking Steve’s bottom lip teasingly. The two of them quickly got lost in the sensation of touch, forgetting Bucky’s fear and the spooky surroundings. Bucky slipped his large calloused hands inside Steve’s shirt, brushing his skin enticingly before tugging Steve’s jacket off. Steve allowed it, burying his face in Bucky’s neck and nipping his friend’s spicy smelling skin. 

Touch after touch, they lost themselves in sensation, allowing their groans and cries to flow free without fear of being heard. 

Steve’s breath stammered when Bucky grabbed his long fingered hand and drew it down between his legs. “I need you to touch me, Steve,” he panted. 

Steve gave him a hard, quick kiss, letting his lips rest against Bucky’s as he answered. “Only if you do the same.” 

They fumbled with each other’s belts and pant buttons, falling into fits of giggles at their clumsiness. Bucky pulled Steve to the floor, ghosting his lips down Steve’s bare waist, going lower as he drew Steve’s pants and skivvies over slim hips. Both men froze, however, at a sound that didn’t come from either of them. 

A loud crash from the second floor chilled the blood in Steve’s veins. It wasn’t so much the unexpected noise but the follow-up pained moan that reverberated through the house. Bucky was on his feet in one breath and began jerking his shed clothes back on. Steve got to his feet and followed suit. The wail from upstairs petered out but Steve could still feel the hair on his body standing on end and the goose bumps shivering over his body. 

Snatching up the flashlight, Bucky paced cautiously toward the door still standing ajar. Steve grabbed the smaller of the two oil lamps. Bucky hesitated, his earlier fear taking temporary control of him and Steve, for once having no teasing remark to say, stepped past Bucky into the foyer. He went toward the staircase next to the doorway that led to the back of the house and held up the lamp to illuminate the staircase. 

He gave a startled yelp as a white face came into view, its mouth a gaping black hole of a wail. As Bucky shakily shone the flashlight up as well, Steve saw that it was Jerry Ryan. Bucky dropped the flashlight when Jerry began to topple down the steps. Bucky caught him, holding the man in his arms. 

Steve carefully set the oil lamp down, turning it up for more light before making his way to Bucky as he drug Jerry safely to the bottom of the staircase. 

“Jerry?” Steve gently shook Jerry’s shoulder. “You okay?” 

“They was trying to scare us, Stevie,” Bucky said disgustedly. 

Steve chewed the inside of his cheek a moment. “Yeah,” he agreed, “but where are the other two and why does Jerry look terrified?” 

Bucky tried to pull Jerry to his feet but the other man began to shake harder, muttering about the darkness, windows and other ramblings Steve couldn’t make out. Suddenly Jerry doubled over and began to wretch. Bucky jerked out of the way, barely in time for Jerry to empty his stomach on the floor. 

“Jerry, what the hell?” Bucky exclaimed but his voice was drowned out by another agonized wail. 

Jerry stiffened upright and began to run. Unfortunately he slipped in his own sick and skidded into the wall, bouncing off it like a ball on a pool table. It didn’t seem to phase him much, for Jerry’s footsteps pounded down the foyer and they heard him slam the heavy wooden front door open. 

Steve picked up the flashlight, aiming it up at the ceiling and chanced a glance at Bucky. He looked about the same color as Jerry, pale as any sheet, and at first Steve thought Bucky was shaking uncontrollably. He realized though, that while yes Bucky was shaking, so was Steve and part of the waveriness of Bucky’s countenance was the flashlight shaking in Steve’s grip. 

Swallowing hard, Steve traded a wary but determined glance with Bucky. No words were needed. If Jerry had come from up there and had been frightened to a state of stupidity beyond his normal self, then that meant that Bernie and Mitch were still up there. 

Step by step, Steve walked up. They hadn’t explored the upstairs; Steve had no idea where to go. Once he reached the top he shone the light around, taking his bearings. Bucky, oil lamp in hand, came up behind Steve and stepped around him, heading to the right. 

“I think the moans came from over in the direction,” Bucky told him, his voice a bit shaky. 

_they will not hurt you_

Steve and Bucky both jumped. The voice was clear even as soft as it was. It was also decidedly male. 

“Wh-what?” Steve gasped. 

_they will not hurt you_

“Who?” Bucky sounded terrified. Steve couldn’t blame him. 

“Help!” 

“Mitch!” Steve reacted instinctively to the petrified yell. 

Both Bucky and Steve were protectors by nature and headed down the hallway, calling for Mitch, who called back but they could never pinpoint where he was at. Room by room they searched: bedrooms, a bathroom with white porcelain claw tub and sink, and a couple of upstairs sitting room. Steve didn’t think the house was that large from the outside. 

Bucky slammed against a locked door and fumbled for the keys in his pocket. “It won’t open,” he told Steve grimly. Whatever fear Bucky felt was gone at the face of someone in danger. “Mitch!” he shouted, pounding on the door with his fist. “You in there?” 

“Bucky? Bucky! Help me!” Mitch’s voice was faint but unmistakably inside the room they now stood outside of. 

“Hold this,” Bucky told Steve grimly, handing him the flashlight. 

“No, Buck,” Steve protested as Bucky took a few steps back to make a running charge at the door. 

Before Bucky could move however the door clicked and swung open. A frozen moment later Mitch came stumbling out of the door, terrified and shaking. He fell onto Bucky, babbling. 

“Oh my God, we were just going to scare you, y’know? And we came in through the window we found that was broken. Jerry went in first, I went after but I don’t know where-“ Mitch seemed to convulse, eyes wide, darting in all directions like a cornered animal. “It was just in fun. We know’d you was queer and just wanted to-Oh God!” Mitch’s face turned ashen. “I won’t, I swear I won’t, it don’t matter. Bucky and Steve are good joes, we didn’t mean nothin’ by it. Please,” Mitch begged, looking over Bucky’s shoulder at something only he could see. 

“Mitch!” Bucky reached out for the other man, who jerked back as if Bucky was going to hurt him. With another wailing scream of anguish, Mitch pitched himself down the hallway and they could hear him clattering down the stairs and out the door. 

_they will not hurt you_

The voice, still adamant but less vicious in its testament, thrummed through Steve’s body. 

“Are you Old Man Richter?” Steve asked in a high voice that sounded more like his voice when he was ten years than his current nineteen. 

_Strom Richter_

Steve glanced at Bucky, who was staring back with his mouth hanging open. 

“Do you have Bernie still here?” 

“Bernie?” Bucky shouted. 

_you are safe_

Steve felt himself relax and he smiled a bit at Bucky. “I think that means that Bernie didn’t get in the house before-“ He shrugged helplessly. 

“What’s he mean ‘you are safe’?” Bucky wondered outloud. 

Steve shook his head. “No idea, but I’m guessing if whatever or whoever is this ghost hasn’t gone after us then it ain’t gonna.” 

Bucky looked skeptical a moment and then, with a burst of courage even Steve wasn’t feeling at the moment, shone the flashlight beam into the room Mitch had been imprisoned in. “Holy Moly!” Bucky breathed. “Steve, look.” 

Steve peered in and felt his jaw drop. 

A large canopied bed fit for a king dominated the room. Light airy wallpaper brightened the room and a few tables around the room, empty of any knick-knacks was typical of their grandparents generation in its ornateness. Beautiful wood scrollwork bordered the wallpaper. The carpet looked plush and luxurious. 

_tell Herbert I love you_

“What?” 

Steve wasn’t sure who spoke, him or Bucky. It didn’t matter though. It was plain that whoever was their spectral guardian had once been like them. 

Steve looked at Bucky and Bucky looked back. A dark eyebrow raised. 

“Believer yet?” Bucky asked. 

“Yep,” Steve drawled. He sauntered over to the bedside table and set the oil lamp down. “The Irish boy believes in ghosts, banshees and things that go bump in the night.” 

“And Old Man Richter,” Bucky added. 

“And Herbert, whoever and wherever he is.” 

* * *

The next morning, Steve followed Bucky out the front door, watching the sway of Bucky’s rear appreciatively. To neither man’s surprise they were not greeted by Mitch, Bernie or Jerry. They didn’t seem them for another two days. 

Mitch slunk up to Steve as he bagged Mrs. Jerkins’ groceries. “Hey, Rogers,” Mitch said abashedly. 

“Hiya, Mitch, feeling better?” Steve thought about making a dig at Mitch’s courage but figured it was in poor taste. Who knew what Strom Richter’s restless spirit put him through? 

“I asked around about the old Richter place,” Mitch stated, catching an apple that rolled precariously out of Steve’s reach and placing it in the sack. He held out a piece of paper. “Thought you and Barnes might like to know. And don’t worry. I ain’t telling nobody nothing no how.” 

Without another word, as soon as Steve took the folded paper, Mitch strode away. Steve finished bagging Mrs. Jerkins’ groceries, pondering what Mitch meant. 

Once his shift was over, he headed for the Barnes residence, knocking politely on the door. Bucky opened it with a welcoming smile. “Coming for dinner?” he invited but Steve shook his head. 

“Nah, but we need to talk.” 

Bucky gave him a puzzled look but obligingly led the way to his bedroom. As the only boy child in the family Bucky had his own room. Steve stepped in and took out the folded paper Mitch handed him earlier. 

“Mitch came by the store and gave me this. Said he wasn’t going to tell anyone anything,” Steve explained. “I ain’t looked at it yet. Figured we’d both want to see or read it or whatever together.” 

Bucky settled on the bed. “Read it. The girls are at their friends and Mom’s helping Dad with something at the neighbors.” 

Steve settled into the inviting curve of Bucky’s arm and unfolded the paper. 

> _Rogers & Barnes-_

> _Me, Bernie and Jerry saw you two kissing a few days ago so that’s why we dared Barnes into going into Old Man’s Richter’s place. We figured you’d be so busy with each other we could ~~tease you~~ pick on you. We didn’t think that the place was really haunted but we know otherwise now. _

__

> _My aunt married a German guy who knew Strom Richter. Uncle Georg said he was queer but didn’t flaunt it. Said the guy’s wife died and he fell in love with a servant or something named Herbert. Never remarried even when his lover killed himself. It was a scandal back then and that’s why the rest of the family don’t want nothing to do with the house._

__

> _I won’t tell you everything I heard and seen. I don’t know what Jerry heard or saw. He ain’t talking to anyone much right now, he’s still so scared. I will tell you that Old Man Richter spoke to me, told me that I was a bully and that people like me was why he died. That he died of a broken heart because people couldn’t accept love and devotion and it killed his lover. That he wasn’t going to let me hurt the two of you because you weren’t doin’ nothing wrong, that you loved each other and love ain’t bad._

> _It got me to thinkin’ and I think the ghost or whatever that was is right. It ain’t a bad thing. Can’t say I want to be with a guy myself, I like the dames and what they got, but to each their own. As the Bible says, “To thine ownself be true”. You can’t argue with the Bible._

__

> _So this here is my apology. Hope you can forgive me and rest assured that I’ll not be a pill to anyone else like you guys._

> _Mitch_

“Isn’t that quote from Shakespeare?” Bucky asked thoughtfully.

“That’s what you got from that?” Steve returned, dumbfounded. 

Bucky gave him a winsome smile and smacked a kiss on Steve’s mouth. “Nah,” he drawled, “but it was nice of Mitch to tell us what happened and that he’ll keep his trap shut.” 

Steve rolled his eyes. 

“So what are the odds that we can visit Old Man Richter’s place again sometime soon?” Bucky waggled his eyebrows suggestively and Steve blushed. 

“Pretty good,” Steve admitted. “I don’t think we’ll ever be interrupted.” 

Bucky gave Steve a longer, searching kiss. “I think you’re right. Too bad we can’t tell Herbert that Richter still loves him.” 

Steve sighed into Bucky’s next kiss, breaking it only long enough to whisper, “Oh, I think Herbert probably knows.” 

**Author's Note:**

> It should be noted that the title is a pun. Queer, besides being an insulting term for gays (though not so much during the '30s and '40s) but also meaning odd, strange or abnormal.
> 
>  
> 
> Come see me on [TUMBLR](http://wolfiejinn.tumblr.com/). I could use a beta reader and cheering squad!


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